This year’s Thanksgiving was just as eventful as all past years visiting with family and a lot of eating. My Aunt Martha hosts Thanksgiving at her home in Long Island. This year I brought the fruit plate because Princess has developed a lot of fruit allergies and can only eat certain fruits.
I love that all of our holidays are a mix of Chinese and American foods. For Thanksgiving, we eat turkey for dinner and dumplings for lunch. Everything is homemade. Here was the team wrapping dumplings. All of us “Wong” woman are skilled dumpling wrappers. The two ladies on the left, Alethia and Ayuko, married my cousins this year. This year has been amazing for my growing family, two of my cousins got married, my sister and sister-in-law both had babies.
We use my mom’s dumpling recipe because they are the best dumplings you will ever eat. Yes, I know it’s a bold statement but it’s the total truth. I call the dumpling arrangement on the plate the dumpling flower. I think my mom created this also.
The girls have been the only grandchildren in both my family and my Grouchy Husband’s until this year so they are use to hanging out with adults. The great thing about our families is everyone loves to play with them. My brother taught them to make mean faces.
Cousin David gave them a lesson on how to start a fire.
Cousin Mikey and his new wife, Ayuko, took them outside to play a game that was a cross between soccer and volleyball.
Then they came back inside and he gave them horse rides.
The girls looked at Ayuko’s wedding photos on the computer. They love anything to do with weddings, dresses, and sparkly things.
Then they had a dance party in the kitchen.
My mom and aunts take a break from cooking to enjoy the food.
Aunt Martha always cooks the turkey. It looks humungous every year.
Uncle Billy always carves the turkey.
Dinner was a long buffet of cornbread, salad, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, green bean casserole, ham, turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, and lots of gravies.
Aunt Martha gave a toast before we ate. She was a little tipsy so it was a little long winded but funny.
Then everyone loaded their plates full of food.
Before I could even think about getting food for the girls my mom already made their plates and was feeding them. She is the definition of being a mother.
Here we all are around the table.
This year we decided to combine the adult and kids tables so that we could all eat together. The girls were excited to be at the big table with the grownups.
After dinner we all sat around trying to figure out how our already overfull stomachs could eat dessert. The girls were being taught multiplication. Everything is a game to them.
The Dumpling Mama xo